Modular Marble Machine #1: The Pump

Today I started on a new marble machine. While doing the first three machines, I have gotten multiple questions through my email about what goes into these type machines. Well, so far, all of them I’ve done have been other’s designs, the one I’m starting as well. However, I do tweak some things and do design changes as I see fit. That is all part of the fun. Since I start getting questions after posting any of the machines though, I decided I wanted to do a daily blog on the build of this new one. I can’t promise anything, but I will try my best to post every day that I work on it. In the case that I can’t, I will take photos so I can catch up as soon as possible. So here we go.

The newest project is called a modular marble machine. It is a very interesting design because the elements of it are not fixed. After it is done, the final user can move pieces and build different designs by stacking blocks. It’s much like a child’s building block toys, but only cut and designed to allow marbles to move over, around, and through the pieces. Before I get started, if anyone would like to read more about the machine, by the man who designed it, Matthius Wandell, here is a link the machine on his website. While you’re there though, if you haven’t seen his site before, check out some more of his designs. This will be the sixth project I have done based on his designs, and I must say, he designs some amazing things.

While working on something like this, I don’t think it is written in stone to make the various parts in any particular order. So I usually work on whatever I feel like working on during a particular day. For this one, I decided I wanted to build the part of it that is most interesting to me, the pump.As I said before, this machine is modular in design. You arrange the blocks to build any number of designs, limited only by ones imagination. To get the marbles started though, there is a hand crank operated pump that catches the marbles and “pumps” them up to the top, to be released upon the built tracks. I have now build machines with escapement mechanisms and gear lifts, but now something that operated like a pump, so this mechanism interested me greatly.Here is the pump assembly. It is an open ended box. Inside is a crank shaft made from stiff wire that moved a slider back and forth, while at the same time moves a piston up and down. This grabs a marble from one hole, transfers it to the other hole, where it pushes up on the marble before it. Later, we will be building a shaft in which this pump will stack the marbles upwards for a steady stream of marbles on the tracks.

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Here are photos of the actions of the pump.There will be a feed trough that feeds a steady stream of marbles to the hole you see the marble in in this photo.As you turn the crank, the piston will lower as the slider move towards the other hole, carrying the marble with it.The marble comes out the other hole and the slider and piston move to catch the next marble from the first hole.It catches the next marble same as the first.Brings it under and over to the ejection hole.And pushes the first marble upwards.

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All of this will become more clear as we progress through the rest of the machine. If you’re impatient and want to see a better idea of it now though, here is a video made by Mr. Wandell about the building of the pump. The video is close to twenty four minutes long, but it is worth watching if you are really interested in seeing exactly how the pump’s inner workings operate.

Thanks Steve. I hope you keep up with the build. I am trying to make sure to post every day I work on it.

Sandra, it’s like any other wood working project, one cut at a time. This will make the fourth marble machine I’ve built, but I don’t think these take nearly as much patience as some of my scroll work projects, so I think I can handle them.

alright william, this will be a real joy to watch, its so nice to be able to shift around with different parts of wood working, scroll work one week, lathe work the next and now a marble machine…never gets boring does it..i have all the confidence you will do well on this…

Thank you all.I hope you all enjoy seeing the build up of this one. I think it will be a lot of fun when it is done because this one is meant to be played with and rearranged at will. All the others, you just put the marbles in and let them go. They are fun too, but I believe this one will be more interactive and more fun overall.Matthius Wandell, as always, has some of the most complete plans I’ve ever seen. If you’ve ever looked at any of his plans, he leaves nothing out. If you have any questions any what so ever, if you look in the plans packet, the answer is in there somewhere.I have looked over the plans at length, and of course I already found a few things I wish to tweak. That’s normal though. I’m never satisfied with building these things exactly according to plan. If I did they’d be just like anyone elses. I like mine to be unique in some kind of way.Anyway, I hope you all enjoy it. I haven’t been doing too well since our trip to Georgia. Today was the first full day I’ve had in the shop since returning. I hope I have some more good days so I can make some progress here. I get anxious when working on projects like this one.

Grizz, one of the reasons I like marble machines is they pull on all sorts of skill sets.This one I’m building now for example will make use of the table saw, drill press, lathe, scroll saw band saw. I get to use all the toy, uh tools, when I’m building something like this.

A number of years ago, when I was still working in a high tech lab, we built a marble machine that sorted marbles by size and color so this machine really struck my fancy! And, since I now have grand kids guess what?